Posts made by Paris

@bored said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

Most games have the same problems they always have, good RP is painfully scarce, and little of what you can scrape up is worth the effort. Of course, a lot of this is due to a change in personal standards of effort/reward compared to games getting worse, although there are factors on that side too (very sandboxy games, etc).

I disagree that good RP is painfully scarce, I find wonderful roleplayers pretty regularly (and I don't think my standards are low). But I've never gotten tired of public RP, even after over 20 years of MU*ing, and a lot of folks nowadays seem to consider random public RP an obstacle between themselves and the RP they want- like roleplayers have started to see other roleplayers as obstacles between themselves and roleplay. But the quality seems pretty consistent, imo.

I love meeting new folks. Sure, I've got my own RP peeves, sure, you run into some real weirdos, but the majority of roleplayers I meet are all right, and every now and then you find some superlatively good writers. Many of them, I find, are like me: we pose at about the level of what's around, and are happy to raise our game when we meet someone else willing to do the same.

@Thenomain said in Comic book diversity:

@Arkandel

I'm surprised he thought he could get away with hiding essentially hate speech in front of a bunch of nerds.

He's now doubling down and ranting about offended Disney jew bosses, so he's really not doing himself any favors.

@HelloProject There are so many good alternative publishers now. Image, IDW, Boom, Aspen, even Valiant's coming out with good books. Many of which are very diverse, and many of their readers switched away from the big two to these publishers in part for that diversity.

@Ghost re: slagging: I learned a long while back that folks with a grudge will use forums like this (and this one, too) to dishonestly try to sway public opinion about folks they don't like. That, unfortunately, happens in any roleplay community, as it's a really toxic and inevitable component of fandom in general.

A few folks will pile on even if the accusations are outright false, because there's always that type of outraged person around. But most people, in game, will still play with you anyway and most people will have no clue about the haterade being spewed. Most don't give a shit about the drama and just want to rp.

I've had a very few people come to me in a panic over unfounded accusations about a third party solely based on stuff here. They ended up admitting they had never seen the behavior described, or talked to anyone who had ever directly seen that behavior, and eventually concluded that maybe they should trust their lying eyes more, and internet rumors less.

My suggestion is always to just keep being a decent person. You can't stop liars from lying (it is pointless to engage with a liar because they only double down and they want you to respond), but if you aren't doing what you're said to do, reasonable people will notice the consistency over time.

@Carex The idea you have in your head might be all these things (what exactly is this huge time drain that you're implying?), but for us it's been no trouble. Keeping tabs on your own game and paying attention to activity is not a Herculean task.

The nice thing is that as the game matures, there's less need to have these positions open, and current guest stars will eventually convert to regular PCs as game average XP catches up to them.

But there is also the notion that IC power itself is bad, and it isn't. WoD is a game that, for several spheres, using and grappling with soft and hard power, both your own and others', is just part of the theme.

For us, this system has helped deal with the weirdness of a new game being populated with nothing but IC noobs and staff-run NPCs. Instead of becoming more cumbersome over time, it phases itself out.

@Carex there is no perfect balance, but we're doing our careful best to monitor things. As the game matures, the need for such characters lessens. :3

Re: who'd want to play (essentially) an npc, a) it's temporary, and b) some of us like playing mentors instead of newbies.

@Arkandel said in Fear and Loathing:

But often enough that's not a design flaw, it's staff not being on top of things or letting unfortunate situations develop unchecked, regardless of the system.

One of my requirements for this game being made at all was that making sure staff staying on top of things was a priority, yeah.